|
 |
 |
|
|
|
| Author |
Message |
    
AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 1634
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, December 26, 2004 - 12:53 pm: | 
|
As I mentioned on another thread I have been spending time going through Old Bailey trial transcripts - concerning sexual and common violence against women by their partners or other males - in an attempt to gain a better insight into the general attitudes of men towards women in the 18th & 19th Centuries regarding such issue.
The experience has not been a comfortable one.
Nine out of every ten cases of sexual assault/rape ended in the dismissal of the prisoner without conviction, usually because the victim did not appear in court to offer evidence, but almost as often because the court came down heavily on the side of a ’gentleman’ who had brutally raped a young servant girl in the isolation of his property where other witnesses were not present, hence the girl was accused of ’making up’ the story, or even blackmailing her master.
Very young girls - almost always under the age of ten - were very often employed as ’runners’ for beer shops in the East End, delivering beer from the premises to near-by households, and engaged in such occupation were often brutally and violently raped by their male customers (often merchants, shopkeepers or ’gentlemen’).
There are dozens of such cases, and in almost every single case - I found only two resulting in conviction - the case has been thrown out of court for the simple reason that a child under the age of ten could not be sworn to the oath and was thus legally unable to give evidence to the court.
Case closed.
It was a charter for adult males to rape and brutalize children.
In cases of common violence the situation was no different, with case after case being thrown out of court for the reasons given above.
In many sad cases, men accused of simply horrendous crimes against young serving girls actually published detailed accounts of their trials in ’penny dreadfuls’ which sold briskly in the streets around the Old Bailey.
I’ll leave the reader to make up their own minds about what the above reveals about male attitudes to women in this unfortunate time slice. |
Robert W. House
Detective Sergeant
Username: Robhouse
Post Number: 150
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, December 26, 2004 - 1:18 pm: |
|
AP,
Keep up the good work. What is the specific time period you are researching? Also, what exactly is the Old Bailey? Is it possible that you might find earlier crimes committed by the ripper, such as arson, rape, etc?
Rob |
Frank van Oploo
Inspector
Username: Franko
Post Number: 397
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, December 26, 2004 - 2:45 pm: |
|
Yes AP, good work, much appreciated.
All the best,
Frank
|
Diana
Inspector
Username: Diana
Post Number: 429
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, December 26, 2004 - 3:42 pm: |
|
Keep researching by all means. Didnt the Victorians divide all women into two groups? The exalted, virtuous, aristocratic mother figure(like the Queen) and the fallen woman? Is this gender based or poverty based? |
AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 1636
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, December 26, 2004 - 3:47 pm: |
|
Sadly, Robert, the trial transcripts after about 1840 are not yet available, they will be at some time in the future but how far in the future I am not yet aware. So the documents I have been studying range from about 1750 to 1835. Noticeable after 1800 the trial transcripts concerning sexual assault/rape are hidden, though names and verdicts are given… almost always not guilty.
This probably means that laws were passed to protect the victims from the shocking intimacy of their own trials, for prior to then the defence briefs were brutal in their search for physical evidence of rape.
The Old Bailey Court is very much the bloodstone of British justice, then and now, so provides a useful insight into such subjects.
I am absolutely convinced that when the trial transcripts after 1840 become available they will provide much material on suspects in the Whitechapel Murderer case, for very minor criminal trials also took place there as well as the most famous cases of the age.
Thanks Frank
I still have a wealth of material that I’m working on and mean to post eventually, not least the bigamy trials which show how commonplace this was in the age, that in relation to the Cutbush/Flood/Taylor families.
|
AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 1950
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Friday, April 08, 2005 - 3:56 pm: |
|
Following on this thread I have found the most remarkable case from the 1880's where a young girl of 18 - who is German or Swiss and unable to speak English - is enticed into an 'eating house' in Church Lane, Whitechapel by the manager, one Lewis Keavy, and is then beaten and raped by a total of 28 men whilst the manager's wife laughs and tells her she deserves what she gets.
Sadly I have not been able to follow the case through to prosecution, but perhaps prosecution never happened. For in the same year a 'gentleman' sexually assaulted a young girl in a train, so badly that she climbed out of the window and stood on the footplate of the next compartment for three miles until rescued, and the 'gentlemen' was fined £10.
Another 'gentleman' who viciously raped a five year old girl was sent down for eight months.
1884, four years before Jack, and getting the stage ready. |
AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 2367
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 09, 2005 - 5:25 pm: |
|
Following on from this, I am always pleased to find serious cases of sexual violence that just chip into Wilson’s much flaunted theory that JtR was the herald of the new age of sexual violence that suddenly arrived in 1888. According to him, that is, and quite a few of his groupies on the boards.
This case in May of 1887 where a very young girl is brutally raped and viciously injured in Ealing is a new one to me.
The injuries inflicted on the girl were not fully described by the press, but reports state that she ‘received terrible injuries’ and ‘for a week her condition was regarded as very critical’… so this was no basic rape, other injuries had been inflicted on the poor girl.
The rapist was Meshach Lee, 29, a basket maker - more like a basket case I reckon - and he was sentenced to life for the terrible crime. |
Dan Norder
Chief Inspector
Username: Dannorder
Post Number: 819
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 09, 2005 - 11:35 pm: |
|
Hi AP,
I don't know of anyone here who claims that JtR was the herald of a new age of sexual violence. Sexual violence has been going on a long, long time. Jack was just one example of that.
But then you deny that Jack was sexually violent. That's the real difference of opinion you seem to have with a lot of people. Posting about a rape in 1887 does nothing to support that stance.
Dan Norder, Editor
Ripper Notes: The International Journal for Ripper Studies
 Profile  Email  Dissertations  Website
|
Caroline Anne Morris
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Caz
Post Number: 2005
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 10, 2005 - 8:03 am: |
|
Hi AP,
What they did to poor Emma Smith's money-maker was also more than 'basic rape', whatever that is supposed to mean. (And I imagine a 'very young girl' could be terribly injured by basic rape in any case.)
And it is pretty much accepted that Emma was attacked before Jack took centre stage to destroy more unfortunates' money-making equipment.
Like Dan, I don't recall anyone here suggesting Jack started a new age of sexual violence.
He was just a copycat.
Love,
Caz
X |
R.J. Palmer
Chief Inspector
Username: Rjpalmer
Post Number: 684
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 10, 2005 - 11:30 am: |
|
The concept is pretty simple. If a man is gang raped by five inmates on his first night in prison, almost no-one outside the most rabid psychoanalyst is going to say their motivation was sex. It's going to be called an act of humiliation, control, violence, intimidation. The biological elements of the crime was just another form of insighting terror, as if to say "we own you, stay in your place." So is it really so difficult to understand why someone like AP or Jane Caputi gets disgusted with the Krafft-Ebings and John Douglases who call these 'sex crimes.'? It's a refusal to buy into the murderer's own cowardly claim that he's fulfiling a 'need' or an 'urge', and to call it what it is--an act of terrorism. |
AP Wolf
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Apwolf
Post Number: 2370
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 10, 2005 - 2:37 pm: |
|
Well, I guess I might be a tad out of date here in referring to Wilson’s claims about sex crime; but there are a few on the boards here who still hammer away about Jack being a ‘sexual serial killer’.
The crime I flagged above was an obvious sexual crime, the motive was a sexual one, whereas as with Jack we do flop about in a wonky and unknown universe, so I guess sometimes I just like to make it clear that obvious sexual violence was taking place in the same time-frame that Jack was at work in his unknown temple.
The fact of the matter is that if Jack had been a genuine sexual serial killer we would not be talking about him now; it is the unknown elements of his crimes that vex and distress us; and push us on this bizarre journey of discovery.
Sexual serial killers are naff and old hat, we all know what makes them tick. We want to know what made Jack tock.
It is not a cop-out to be strict in regard to the apparent lack of sexual motive in Jack’s crimes, rather it is a concern not to glorify the murder of women for some kind of sexual satisfaction that was not there in the first place… as far as we know.
I simply do not want to influence young men into believing that by killing women that they might achieve some sort of sexual nirvana.
Many others are guilty of this crime.
Sometimes my methodology might be off the wall and way out of whack but my intentions are always honourable. |
Dan Norder
Chief Inspector
Username: Dannorder
Post Number: 821
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 10, 2005 - 11:59 pm: |
|
Hi RJ,
Sorry, but rape is sexually motivated.Clearly. Without question. Whether it be date rape or prison gang rapes. If it was just violence or intimidation there are lots of better ways to do that that do not involve sexual contact.
A while back rape wasn't treated seriously as a crime, so feminists had a campaign to get people to recognize that it was just as violent as other violent crimes. Of course some people were a little (OK, a lot) overzealous and decided to go all the way to declaring it had no sexual component. That view is once again disappearing among professionals and common sense is making a come back. And it's not just psychoanalysts saying it either.
Rape is sexually motivated. Mutilation killers are sexually motivated. To claim otherwise misses the fundamental point behind both.
Dan Norder, Editor
Ripper Notes: The International Journal for Ripper Studies
Profile Email Dissertations Website
|
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 4758
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, August 11, 2005 - 5:29 am: |
|
Hi Dan
I think that's putting it a bit strong. Did not the Duke of Wellington have all of Napoleon's mistresses? Of course, he may have found them attractive, but I feel there was more going on.
So, if consensual sex can be about power, why on earth can't rape be?
Of course, some rape is sexually motivated. But I imagine there are also rapists who feel like a dog cocking its leg against a lampost - the lampost here being the victim herself, or the tribe/nation/class/clan/caste etc to which she belongs. In such scenarios, revenge and power can come to the fore.
But hey, I'm not a psychologist.
Robert |
|
Use of these
message boards implies agreement and consent to our Terms of Use.
The views expressed here in no way reflect the views of the owners and
operators of Casebook: Jack the Ripper.
Our old message board content (45,000+ messages) is no longer available online, but a complete archive
is available on the Casebook At Home Edition, for 19.99 (US) plus shipping.
The "At Home" Edition works just like the real web site, but with absolutely no advertisements.
You can browse it anywhere - in the car, on the plane, on your front porch - without ever needing to hook up to
an internet connection. Click here to buy the Casebook At Home Edition.
|
|
|
|
